[NON BLOG] What I Did on my Weekend

Friday, I left for a nice retreat in upstate New York with my friend J. from Toronto. We reached the campsite by the Finger Lakes driving, via Gananoque and Syracuse. It was interesting to see the American countryside, which looked similar in many ways to that of rural Ontario. In certain respects, though--particularly the state of the houses, often not in the best of trim--it seemed poorer. I was interested to notice that Syracuse bore a superficial resemblance to Richmond in the monumentality of its downtown's architecture. I noticed less of this driving west towards Canada via Buffalo--the Finger Lakes region seemed significantly richer, much closer to a stereotypical image of rich New England.

The retreat itself was very enjoyable. I met some nice people, and the setting was fantastic, in the middle of a mountainous landscape covered with deciduous trees in leaf already. And the weather! 25 degrees Celsius, sunny, and with a light breeze to keep things from getting too hot.

On my return to Canada on Sunday, I met up with talktooloose who kindly put me up in his west-end downtown Toronto home for Sunday and Monday nights. It was great to finally get to know talktooloose--I'd missed him the last time I was in Toronto. Fortunately, he more than lived up to his persona in livejournal.

I spent Monday morning and afternoon wandering about Toronto, making some purchases (listed below) and visiting the ROM's Eternal Egypt exhibition. "Eternal Egypt" gave a good overview of Egyptian civilization, and the audioguide--recorded by the inimitable Rhys-Davies--was good. The labelling of the artifacts, though, didn't correspond very well with the audioguides; I had to search to find the artifacts in their proper order. Later, I met with James B. for dinner at Bistro 990, and then drinks with him and a couple of friends at Slack Alice.

I took Train 42 Tuesday morning at 9:30 east to Kingston. The train got in at a quarter to noon, and I split a cab with a fellow graduate student down to the JDUC. And now, here I am, back in Kingston ON.

[BRIEF NOTE] Thom Gunn, In Memoriam

The recent death of British poet Thom Gunn has been extensively covered, for instance by Crooked Timber in the blogosphere and by The Guardian in traditional media. I thought I'd make a little brief note myself.

( Considering The Snail )

( The Man With Night Sweats )

[REVIEW] Resurgence

Charles Sheffield died a year and a half ago. That's unfortunate, since that means that the Heritage universe is never going to be completed beyond its fifth book, Resurgence, which set up an interesting new arena for the protagonists.

( First, some background. )

( Now, Resurgence. )

( Counter )

[BRIEF NOTE] Hitler's Second Book

I was very surprised to see Hitler's Second Book on the shelves of Stauffer Library's new books collection, yet it definitely exists and is legitimate. You can go to Amazon.com to order it. If you order it today, if things go the right way at the warehouse and you're willing to pay the extra cost, you can even get it for Monday.

( More about Hitler's sophomore effort. )

As Dreher and Bartov point out, it's important to read this book in a time of growing anti-Semitism, in particular of an annhilationist anti-Semitism in the Arab world. The book's importance transcends this particular context and prejudice, however; it's useful to examine the specific ways in which Hitler, an unquestioned master of populist prejudice, exploited prejudices against hybridity and cosmopolitanism and contradictions of self-contained nationalist narratives. The 21st century will be globalized and pluralized, else it will not be at all.

( Counter )